


And Nothing Has Changed

by WhyDoesEverythingHappenSoMuch



Category: The Goldfinch (2019), The Goldfinch - Donna Tartt
Genre: Amsterdam, Boris is sexist, Childhood Memories, Denial of Feelings, Drinking, Drugs, Drunk Sex, Feelings Realization, I'm Bad At Tagging, Implied/Referenced Drug Use, Implied/Referenced Homophobia, Implied/Referenced Self-Harm, Implied/Referenced Underage Sex, M/M, Tenderness, blood kink but not really?, but whats new, past Kitsey/theo referenced, past Pippa/theo, theo is king of repression, there will be smut but it will be artsy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-06
Updated: 2019-10-06
Packaged: 2020-11-24 20:27:39
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,361
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20913623
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/WhyDoesEverythingHappenSoMuch/pseuds/WhyDoesEverythingHappenSoMuch
Summary: “Potter, maybe you have one more drink and then try and tell me you are ‘not in the mood.” He raised a hand again, but before the waitress saw, I grabbed him by the leather-clad forearm and pulled his hand back down.“Boris, I'm engaged.” I tried again in vain to make him understand the significance of that.“Sure, but you are here with me, drinking with me, and you are going to get to know some very good girls with me.” I hadn’t realized, but somehow his fingers had ended up laced with mine.___Boris and Theo's first night in Amsterdam they wind up in a bar and Boris can't seem to get off the topic of how unfair it is that Kitsey is cheating. Boris thinks Theo should have his own extramarital fun too.To quote Donna Tartt, "matters progress"





	And Nothing Has Changed

**Author's Note:**

> PLEASE NOTE:   
this fic was made to be read while listening to K. by Cigarettes After Sex!
> 
> On to my apologies:
> 
> Let me first apologize for my awful cobbling together of google translate Russian and random quotes I found on travel sites.
> 
> Secondly, let me apologize for Boris being sexist. We would all like for him to be better, but I must write the truth.
> 
> THIRDLY, I have tried SO HARD to make italics work here and to center the section titles, but it just won't work, so I'm so very sorry for some of the flashback sections; they are easier to read if they are in a different type from the rest of the story, but oh well

I

Memories 

“Memories are the treasures that we keep locked deep within the storehouse of our souls, to keep our hearts warm when we are lonely.”

  


“So your girl isn’t faithful. Big deal, women never are.” Boris stated with a fatalistic shrug; the stiff fabric of his dark leather jacket bunched up funny around his shoulders. I turned my face away, something about his nonchalant nature concerning heartbreak bothered me. He spoke again, but it was lost to me in the general cacophony of the bar — a dull roar of human sounds and tv static. I hovered my hands just above the table, never resting my arms fully; the tabletops in these sorts of places always had a perpetual stickiness to them. He rubbed at his eyes, reddened with sleep deprivation. The flight here had taken quite a bit out of him. The sun had been dying in brilliantly Shakespearean fashion when we had finally met up. There were plenty of things to get done that first night in Amsterdam, but Boris had demanded a drink. 

  


“Potter, you are too romantic and are always getting yourself in sad trouble. It is very sad when your love isn’t yours, but that’s how it always goes.” He laughed his awkward bark of a laugh and stuck out a hand into the crowded aisle of the bar, almost hitting one of the wait staff as he did so, to request another drink. 

  


My eyes lingered on his pale hand, somehow still sheet white under the lurid yellow lights of the bar. His fingertips were tinted red with cold at the very tips and looked as if he had been soaking them in wine. They fluttered about in the air as he spoke. The bones of his wrist still poked out in that harsh yet delicate way they had in his boyhood. 

  


A hand extended to me, a pretty little tab of bliss balanced on the pointer finger. 

  


His face was lit from below from the dimmish green light that emanated from the pool beside us. The shadows that played upon Boris’s face did little to hide his already bloodshot eyes.

  


“Open.” The bluntness of the word shocked me into compliance. My chapped lips parted, and the tab was unceremoniously deposited upon my tongue. 

  


The tab itself tasted like nothing, his skin of salt. With the same hand still damp with my spit, he roughly shoved me back—those thin ash stained hands were strong—on to the rough concrete surrounding the pool. I caught myself, scraping my palms in the process. The little prickling sting of blood finding its way to the surface made me shiver, or maybe it was the near-freezing desert night. I could smell the iron-like scent more than I could feel the injury itself. A playful rage that only Boris could insight came upon me. Every cell in my body was calling for me to hurt him back in the name of their brethren lost to the pool deck.

  


“Fuck you that hurt!” I spat, smearing my bloody palm across his face. He gave his characteristic shout of a laugh. I brought my hand to cover his mouth. He bit it, lightly enough, but it aggravated the fresh cut.

  


I fell back again, he had shoved me once more, but before my head hit the unforgiving ground, I saw him experimentally lick at the blood I had smeared all across his lips. “He’s eating you,” my drug-addled brain whispered to my conscious.

  


So much about him was unchanged. His hair was the same midnight mess too, I noticed, as he moved that same hand to ruffle his own curls.

“I'm not in a sad mess.” I huffed more at the half-empty glass of scotch before me than to the man. Boris rolled his eyes and made a sweeping gesture in my direction.

  


“You are! You are sad about her, I know this because I get you drunk, and all you can do is talk, talk about her leaving.” His face, expressive as always, had gone through many mutations as he spoke. While maybe I had brought up Kitsey, I hardly thought that was unwarranted considering the current situation.

  


“She didn’t leave. I did when you dragged me out of my own wedding party.”

  


“You are so technical! Americans always have to be right! Why?” He shook his head vigorously and lightly slapped himself on the cheek as if to beat the thought out of himself. 

  


“We will not argue tonight, Potter.”

  


“I didn’t start it.” 

  


Thankfully, some pretty little thing of a waitress appeared with the drinks, and Boris turned humorous again.

  


“So this lady that you have left, she did not love you. Such is life.” He raised his glass toward me with such vigor the contents of it sloshed out and onto the table. He gave me a cunning smile — he had spilled on purpose. He glanced down at the spill, then back to me, his eyes narrowing for just a moment. He wanted the waitress again, wanted her to bed over the table, he thought I would find some amusement in that; that's what the look said anyway. Apparently, I was still just as fluent in our childhood language of gestures.

  


We cheated on tests through eye contact alone, spoken at length about plans and evaded various shop owners though nothing but light touches, we had made it through a real police run in solely through listening for each other's breath.

  


I often thought, high of my ass, Boris’s head resting upon my stomach, that we shared a body. As he absorbed me, I absorbed him in equal amounts. Often, when we touched, I couldn’t quite tell where I ended and he began. It always came as a shock to me when he was able to extricate himself from my grasp.

  


Sometimes I think we thought we were talking out loud, but then some soon-to-be drop out would call “fags” from down the hallway, and we would realize we had probably just been staring. 

  


Boris raised his hand again and made a ‘come here’ motion— fingers curling, the blunt, chewed down nails were easier to see in profile. That same waitress weaved her way through the crowds back to our table. She produced a white and surprisingly unstained rag from her pocket and set to work on the spill. I knew it was for naught. The sticky would remain. No matter how much one despised it, and scrubbed at it, and ignored it, and renamed it, it would remain. Sweet, sticky, and intoxicating as the day it had spilled. 

  


Her blouse was low cut, and as she leaned over the table to start upon her Sisyphean task, the gauzy fabric fell away from her sweat-slicked skin. The fringe of a black bra came into view. I looked away, tried to engage Boris in conversation to save the girl the embarrassment of my seeing her. “ Shluha vokzal’ naja ” he almost purred, and I started, thankfully, Boris wasn’t looking at me. 

  


“Hi,” He drew out the word, ending in a vocal fry that went straight to my gut. Boris had one elbow on the table, and his head found purchase in his palm, the tips of his fingers disappeared gently into the night of his curls. His dark eyebrows, seemingly always in motion, shot up in response to the girl’s small smile. 

  


“Hi.” her voice, paper-thin, was all but lost in the general, unremarkable din of the bar.

  


Boris was not subtle in his ogling her. His black eyes undressed her and fucked her against the wall shamelessly. The scene came to my mind unbidden, and something about how easily I could conjure up what Boris’s face would look like upon his release shocked me.

  


It was messy, and he had bitten me. It was fast and rough, and halfway through, he opened the window to vomit. I kissed him after the fact anyway.

  


He pinned me down, and I pretended to struggle. He liked that, and I hated myself for liking it too. 

  


“Fucking hold still” and “pozvol' mne slomat' tebya” were his prayers. I didn’t speak for the only things I had to communicate were better said by threading trembling fingers through the tousled dark mess of hair and pulling hard. 

  


Somewhere between wrestling and lovemaking was where Boris and I found our bliss. Every touch hurt just as much as it brought forward wave after wave of ineffable pleasure. Touching Boris was like drowning.

  


But more than the physical, more than the twist of his hands, more than the dull pain of his nails digging into my hips and the heat of his boney body, it was his expressions that always sent me tumbling over the edge and into that sea. Long eyelashes fluttering closed to kiss the often purpled skin of his under eye, bruised lips parted in the softest ‘o,’ jaw slack after having been clenched for so long a time. Beautiful.

  


The waitress turned, having been called somewhere else, and I found I had a hard time meeting Boris’s eyes for a fraction of a moment. The darkness of his eyes reminded me of the dark of dessert skies, the stars— little flecks of light — took the new and unassuming form of reflection of bar lights in his eyes.

  


“Pretty girl, no?” He grinned at me, his almost eerily straight teeth pulled my attention, or maybe it was his lips that distracted me. It was my turn to shrug in lieu of an answer. He raised his glass in my direction, and I reciprocated, but when we moved to bring our drinks together, he pulled his back just before the satisfying ‘clink’ could be made. Before I had even brought the lip of the glass to my own, Boris had downed half of his. I followed suit.

  


“After drinks, we should go find girls.”

  


I kept my eyes trained on my empty glass and watched beads of sweat gather on the sides of the glass and trail slowly down until they formed a small puddle beside my glass.

  


The sun pressed down on us, the perpetual boot of heat upon humans of tiny, sweaty bodies. Little pearl-like beads of sweat ran continuously down my face; like a necklace whose chain had snapped. Boris fared even worse. Not only had the distinct sheen of sweat developed, but his face had reddened. Sweat ran down his forehead and got in his eyes, turning them red as his skin. Though he looked like he was about to drop dead of dehydration at any second, I couldn’t help but notice how pretty his eyelashes looked, darkened by the wet. Though it was apparently, “so fucking hot,” and, “unbearable” and “inhumane” (pronounced In-human) Boris kept an arm slung over my shoulders. 

  


We were without the shelter of the shadow typically provided by Boris’ umbrella. He had gotten it confiscated when he had threatened to “Za cyun v shopu” to some kid who had looked at me funny. I hadn’t seen it, and wouldn’t have cared, having been through much worse at the hands of actual bullies, but Boris insisted. The kid obviously hadn’t known what Boris had actually spat at him, but it was clear to anyone who had been there to see his little dumb show what it meant. 

  


“It’s too fucking hot. I hate the sun. I fucking hate the sun.” He droned. A monotonous repetition as we walked and walked. Step, complaint, step, complaint. The idiot refused to take his black, woolen suit jacket off.

  


He brought the hem of his shirt up to wipe off his brow again and again. Every time exposing his midriff to the angry sun. It burned easily, and he skipped the next three days of school claiming that it was too painful to dress —

  


“So, girls?” Boris asked again. Real, solid, not only-the-vague-memory-of-smoke-and-blood Boris asking me a question. A question I should be answering.

  


“I'm engaged.”

  


“Well, yes. But your girl is unfaithful. This is just fair. She has her own fun, and so do you.” This was all very humorous to him, as he couldn’t stop laughing at the end of every sentence.

  


“Sure. But I’m not in the mood.”

  


“Not in the mood?” He repeated the words the same way he did when he got hold of some new English phrase. The words sat funnily in his mouth and seemed to catch somewhere in his throat.

  


“Potter, maybe you have one more drink and then try and tell me you are ‘not in the mood.” He raised a hand again, but before the waitress saw, I grabbed him by the leather-clad forearm and pulled his hand back down.

  


“Boris, I'm engaged.” I tried again in vain to make him understand the significance of that.

  


“Sure, but you are here with me, drinking with me, and you are going to get to know some very good girls with me.” I hadn’t realized, but somehow his fingers had ended up laced with mine. The press of his fingers against my own; the slight shake of the alcoholic, the chill of the accidental-anorexic of heroin was eerily familiar. Seeing his hand in mine — chewed-to-the-bed nails so near my Kitsey-manicured ones— was like watching a dream play out in reality. All things Boris seemed so ephemeral. I was sure if I looked away from our joined hands for even a second, he would turn to ash.

  


Worse and far more humiliating than the drug habit was Boris and I’s unconscious hand-holding. Constant calls of ‘fag’ followed us down the clinically-lit halls of the school for tens of steps before we realized why we were being called after. 

  


I pulled my hand away, then half regretted it.

  


I was always the first to pull away. Shame would eat at me for the rest of the day after every incident. Boris appeared not to mind; Boris seemed to be eager to prove a point and would sometimes refuse to let me wrench my hand out of his cool grasp. And when we were alone, he would kiss my knuckles and bite at the fleshiest parts of my palm.

  


“Look, Boris, I don't like prostitutes—” 

  


He laughed at my word choice, his head falling to meet his chest, hair hiding his grin, “Potter you are too nice to nothing-girls you do not know. Call them whores.” I, of course, ignored him.

  


“I don’t like them. I don't like… well, I’m not interested in that…”

  


“How would she know, Potter! You are with me and-“

  


“Boris, stop. My issue isn’t that she would be upset with me. She wouldn’t even care, I know that. She practically told me that I was free to do whatever want so long as I’m waiting for her at the alter. It’s convenient. We make sense. And it's for her mom-” I shook my head, I was getting way off-topic. Whatever Boris had been buying us was strong because two glasses in and I was already oversharing about my semi-ex-fiancé’s sad mother. 

  


“The point is that-“ I was fiddling with the hem of my jacket cuff searching for what to say next when he cut me off.

  


“The point.” He rolled his eyes and pinched the bridge of his nose before he fingers took flight once more, “The point is that it is very unfair that she may sleep with Cable — him and his stupid fucking face—“ I was unsure what was so awful about his face, but I didn’t interrupt, “and you live like a virgin-“

  


“God, Boris.” Frown seizing hold of my features. “I’m not-“

  


“Of course I know you’re not, we—“ 

  


“Shut it.” I hissed as the waitress returned to offer us more to drink. Clearly, whoever ran the place knew that Boris had money. Boris exchanged a few words with the waitress while I fumed silently across from him. Only a few words into their conversation, she was sliding him a little slip of paper, and before she left, she touched him on the shoulder so lightly, he probably wouldn’t have noticed if he wasn’t tracking her every move like a hawk.

  


Hawklike eyes back on me.

  


“She is not a whore, and she likes us both! I said very nice things about you, and she wants-“

  


“Boris, I don’t even find her attractive and-“

  


“And she gets off her shift in only an hour so-“

  


“Boris-“

  


“And we can meet her outside and-“

  


“I don’t want to have sex with some girl I don’t know.”

  


His face screwed up in a mix of confusion and vexation; eyebrows drawn tightly together. 

  


“Why not? What’s the phrase? The night is so new, Potter!”

  


I frowned at him, “that’s not the saying.” I could feel that very Boris-specific anger building up inside me, boiling low in my gut — almost pleasure. It was a feeling that, watching the Vegas lights give way to the dark expanse of roads and highways that would lead me back to New York, I thought I would never feel again. As much as I hated the burning of common anger, there was something acidicly sacurine about any feeling Boris engendered. 

  


“Ssh. The night is so far from the day. You can think all you like in the morning, but the night? The night is time to act freely! Why not touch her?”

  


“Because I don’t know her!”

  


“And must you always ‘know’ your whores?” He responded as if my statement was some posh relic of ages past; it was like I had suggested dance cards or date chaperones. 

  


“I don’t fucking have ‘whores’ Boris.” I moved to stand, the little wooden chair made an awful racket against the tiled floor. A few heads turned in our direction as I stood, but before I could turn away, Boris managed to grab the edge of my sleeve. His grip, harsh, commanded my attention.

  


“Potter, sorry. Sit, sit,”

  


I did so begrudgingly. 

  


“All I am saying is that it is very unfair. And yes, now I understand you only like to touch those you know. I understand your sentiment.” 

  


“Stop acting like it’s so fucking ludicrous that I might wanna know who I sleep with,” I muttered, eyes downcast.

  


He gave a small and non-patronizing chuckle, “okay, okay.”

  


“Look, why don't we just go back to your hotel— you would not like where I stay I think— We can get high, just the two of us. Like old times, just us.” 

  


The world is underwater, and the pool-light stars are burning out because someone got them wet. Boris and I are swimming in the night sky and the stars — which really are that small — stick to Boris. The moon floats by. And to drag my hand through the water-air takes a good deal of pushing, and to paddle my way through it to Boris is a challenge. To breath once I get there seems impossible. It isn’t scary, though, the not breathing. It’s something I had always wished for, really. I wonder if I asked, and kissed him very sweetly if he would stop breathing alongside with me. 

  


The grin, the pleading nature of his voice, the tilt of his head to one side, and I was hard-pressed to say no.

II

Lies

“Lying is done with words, and also with silence.”

  


  


My own hotel room, which had to me seemed so barren and sterile now teem with life the moment Boris threw his jacket down by the door and carefully removed his boots and set them on the edge of the bed.

  


I gave him a quizzical look, glancing down at the dark, maybe muddied boots taking up residence on the clean white sheets. Boris himself had sat on the floor at the foot of the bed. He dragged his hands back and forth over the plush, white carpet for a moment before moving a hand to pop the first few buttons of his shirt. The delicate movement of his hands was unobtrusive enough that his skillful fingers hardly drew my focus.

  


“They are expensive boots, I can not just leave them on the ground.” He explained as if it was the most obvious thing in the world. A fit of laughter racked my body, and I closed my eyes as I let myself be carried off in the fit. When I looked back up, Boris was pulling a small silver tin from his pocket. 

  


The metal face of the thing glinted ominously in the low light of the room. Boris thumbed it open slowly, and without really having told my legs to move, I found I was beside him on the floor, watching with bated breath and clenched heart as he produced a dollar bill. He rolled it with elegant fingers. I hardly paid attention as he worked.

  


“Like the American movies, yeah?” He was most likely grinning, but I didn’t bother to look. For the time being, the face of that tin was vastly more interesting. I knelt down beside him, and already I grew lightheaded from the thought of what was to come. Ketamine, how I’ve missed you.

  


It hurts for a moment before it starts to feel good; Boris’s stash was a lot stronger than what I had managed to get my hands on in New York, and it burned. I gripped his shoulder as I inhaled again.

  


“Good fucking god Boris, where do you get this stuff?” My hands had begun tingle, and my vision blurred just at the edge. I watched Boris watch me in soft focus. The glance that appeared to teem with so much meaning thrown at me probably came about as a product of the hazy filter the K had draped over reality.

  


He simply shrugged, and I could feel the shift of his bones under my hand. I stretched out my hand, trying to see how much of his slight frame I could get underhand, or perhaps I had promptly let go of him.

  


Stars were exploding out the window, and Boris couldn’t stop asking about girls. He wanted to know what girls I had been with, had wanted to be with but never had to nerve to ask. The girls I had thought that I wanted but later regretted. 

  


“I never regretted any of them.” Though I had.

  


When I thought about it, I had never been with a girl I loved. The only girl I would ever love was untouchable, my green light. I had had her in dreams and nightmares and waking reveries. Pippa. Red hair always well maintained, clean skin never blemished, eyes ever bright and attentive. Pippa, always just too cold or too far away for me to touch. Too lovely and unreal and like an angel. 

  


“Bullshit.” He had seen the shift in my expression, “You are far too sad to be telling me that no girl you really loved ever left you before. No girl ever walked away from you, ‘Goodbye, I do not love you’ and all?”

  


I shook my head vigorously and immediately regretted it. The exploding stars blurred and bled together until the sky was streaked rather than dotted. I brought a shaking hand up to my face, and rubbed, surprised when I found my glasses perched there. I attempted to grab at them, but my hands were shaking so badly that I couldn’t get a solid grip. I cursed their smooth edges. 

  


Boris watched me struggle a moment before reaching out with such sure and sober confidence — I wondered if he and I had taken the same drug — and removed them for me. 

  


I leaned into his touch, well, It was more like Boris had pressed a hand into my skin in passing, and I had merely neglected to move. 

  


“Better, Potter?”

  


I nodded, noting the texture of his hand as I rubbed my face into the palm, or maybe it was more of a terse nod. One that said ‘yes.’ nothing more, nothing less. 

  


“What about you, Boris. Anyone, you love ever run away?” I meant it only as a joke, only as a turn of the interrogation, but something soured behind his eyes. 

  


His eyebrows drew together tightly, and his face worked a moment, trying to settle on one expression. With the world starting to bleed all over itself, it was hard to tell if Boris was crying, or if it was just a trick of the moonlight.

  


“Yes, yes, I think so.” He muttered, his expression still fraught. He worked his jaw over and over again before he managed a tight smile.

  


“I know you can not bring yourself to be angry with your girl, but I am.” He had started up vehemently, he fancied himself the champion of my honor. 

  


“I know Boris, it’s not fair, I know. You said before.” He was trying to stand, but I pulled him back down to the floor beside me quickly. Or maybe he fell back down on his own, I wasn’t all that keen on making him stay anyway.

  


“Ay! Potter!” He landed hard, and like a rag doll, splayed himself out haphazardly when he hit the ground. His arm had knocked into mine, the tingling sensation in my fingers sparked at the point of contact. I laughed and close my eyes a moment, just to watch the faint aray for colors blooming behind my eyelids.

  


“Do not avoid this talk! At least admit to me, admit to yourself that you are angry.”

  


“I'm really not, Boris. Even if I was, it doesn't mean I wanna… you know,” I shrug and turn my head away. I watch the dust particles float through the air, illuminated by the dim light of the bedside lamp. 

  


I closed my eyes for a moment and absentmindedly noted the shifting and undulating waves of color behind my eyelids.

  


I only had my eyes closed for that one moment, but when I opened them, I was on the other side of the room. Boris sat not far from me with a bottle of port in one hand, fingers wrapped tightly around its neck. Little porcelain dishes decorated with hand-done simplistic paintings of lilies were strewn about on the floor. Most of these small plates held assortments of delicate pastries. On every plate, half the dish was untouched, half saved for me.

  


I laughed as I came to and struggled to bring my heavy hands up to touch my face, “When did you order all this?”

  


Boris sat with his free hand covered in frosting; his fingers rested atop wine stain lips. He gave me a quizzical look before he crawled over to where I sat.

  


“I didn’t; you did. God Potter, you still blackout so easy!”

  


The thought terrified me for just a moment before the clenching of my heart and throat gave way to new waves of laughter.

  


“Don’t tell me I got us girls too.”

  


“Ah! Now you have me back on the topic!” He took another swig from the bottle, licking his lips as he set the thing down on the floor beside him. He sat forward, bringing his knees to his chest. His arms wrapped around them in an almost childish gesture.

  


“Well, not just you, this drink too, I think, has me thinking of girls.” He grinned down towards the gently sloping neck of the bottle. 

  


“Port ‘s an aphrodisiac.” I still hadn’t gotten the laughter out of my system, or maybe it’s just the sweetness of the high that colored everything Boris did with a humorous tint. How funny it was that Boris, who had already been desperate for carnal attention at the start of the night, had just downed half a bottle of port. An expensive one by the looks of it.

  


“A what?” A hand-drawn up in a cupping motion over his ear.

  


“Aphrodisiac, Boris.”

  


“You say that like I know what that means,” He untangled himself to take another swig. When he pulled the bottle away, it produced a light popping sound, and a bead of the drink remained upon his perpetually pouty lower lip. ‘Russian Vampire,’ I thought, remembering the, at the time, deeply bothersome nickname. He had hated it, I had brought it up constantly.

  


He had yet to lick away that ruby droplet. I wanted to be the one to remove the bead of red, maybe with a quick swipe of the thumb, or perhaps even with the lightest of kisses. Or maybe I was just impatient and actually I wanted him smear it away with the back of his wrist.

  


“An aphrodisiac gets you in the mood. The term comes from Aphrodite who I’m sure you know was—”

  


“So, this drink makes me horny?” He had totally unfurled himself now; leaned back and holding himself up on his forearms, legs kicked out in front of him. Sweat-slicked hair stuck to his forehead and diamond droplets stood out on his pale skin. He rested in this manner for a moment and appeared to mull over the new information before promptly righting himself and grabbing at the bottle, hand coming to close around the neck of it.

  


He thrust the bottle out towards me. I held out a hand in protest, “The K is enough for me.”

  


“Potter, it’s good. Good together.” he was sloppy, crawling his way over to me, all the while trying to keep a hold on the bottle. He came to kneel right before me and deposited the bottle into my heavy hands.

  


We had gone through a whole other bottle and had given up on finishing off all the plates, by the time the euphoria really started to hit. We were sprawled out on the bed, making accidental contact each time one of us shifted.

  


Everything, the moon, the stars, the wine stained rug, the shaking of my hands, the sound of Boris’s shouting laughter, was beautiful. The unwashed, alcoholic smell of Boris was beautiful then too, and maybe it had always been. Everything was lovely and beautiful in a profound way. The way a forest fire is beautiful. The way any living person, no matter how bad, ‘ yes Boris, even your dad ,’ was beautiful. The way the vastness of the universe, at once crushing and freeing, was beautiful. Even my mom, turning her back at last time, the back of her head and the sway of her chestnut hair as she walked away, walked into the vale, was beautiful. Pain was exquisite. Suffering was human and real, and really, not all that different from reverence or love. 

  


I loved everything with such a deep, disgusting depth that I thought I could shout at the almost-pain of it. 

  


I explained this to Boris, he merely grinned and gave a quiet ‘hm’ in agreement.

  


“I think you are beautiful,” He muttered, seemingly more to himself than to me. To hear the compliment felt like I was intruding.

  


“You know, Boris, I’m not sure I make it onto my own list of beautiful people.”

  


“You, Potter, are an idiot.”

  


“Maybe I am.” 

  


And then he was kissing me so lightly I thought for a moment I had dreamt it. He pulled back, and I felt the unsureness of his breath as it came out and uneven huffs against my lips. He grazed my lips with his own once more before bringing his lips to my jaw, where he trailed equally light and terrified kisses. From above, he gingerly let the nothing-weight of his body come to rest upon me. 

  


“I want to say that I am sorry, but I do not think I can lie to you right now,” barely a whisper.

  


The sweetness of the port and of his half-frightened movements did wonders keeping me docile. A hand, soft and curious, came to rest upon my cheek. 

  


That same soft and curious hand had trailed its way down to fumble with the first button of my shirt. 

  


Boris’s fingers made contact with my skin, and I immediately snatched his wrist and sat up, pushing Boris off in the process. His eyes, wide, stared back at me with a barely concealed panic. His dark form, all dressed in black, was striking against the perfect white of my sheets.

  


“I’m engaged to be married,” dragging the back of my hand over my lips. I tried to free myself from the vinous, tingling sensation blooming there. I try to rid myself of the taste of him.

  


“You don’t love her,” 

  


“I made a commitment.”

  


“A commitment she ignores every day!” Boris fumed crawling forward and stealing and the smallest peck from me to punctuate his argument. I turned my face from him upon his attempt to capture my lips in another, and the soft kiss landed on my cheek.

  


“I like her well enough,” I knew Boris was rolling his eyes at that already, “And, and I’m not gay.”

  


“I am not saying you are gay, I am saying I am here with you. I am saying you and I have made each other feel very good before, yes? Yes. And I am sure you like me ‘well enough’ too. I am sure of it.” 

  


He continued speaking over me.

  


“If you tell me you do not like me because I am me, Boris, then okay,” Hands held up in defense, “I am different now, I know. What maybe was not a problem for you then is now.” The thing was that he hadn’t changed at all. It scared me that I still wanted him with the same boyish fever I had all those years ago.

  


“But, but, I am saying that if you do not want it, want me, I believe you and we do another bump, and I leave for the night. But if all you can tell me is that you do not like most men, well, I feel like that should have very, very little bearing on this.” He shrugged like it meant nothing, but he held my gaze so intently, like this was a bearing of his soul.

  


“I… I don't know.”

  


“You must know. Do you want me or not.” 

  


The crass, blunt nature of his words shocked me, blush blooming. Thankfully the room was too dim for Boris to have been able to see the red tint of my cheeks.

  


“Well, I don't know.”

  


“I just kissed you, Potter! You must know. Or do you need reminder.” He moved to bring our mouths together once more, but I grabbed his shoulders and held him in place. It was hard to make out if his lips were red from kissing or wine. His dark eyes watched me in a puppyish manor, eyebrows drawn together in an unspoken question, the bruise-looking bags under his eyes only made the whole image of him that much more tragic. 

  


“We shouldn't.” Even I could hear how weak my voice sounded. 

  


“We also should not do K, but I offer that, and you say, ‘yes’ no question!”

  


“It’s different.” And, god, I can feel my resolve breaking.

  


“It’s not different. Makes you feel good, your cheating wife does not like it. Same thing!”

  


I know I have lost to him when the first thought that springs to mind after he has spoken is that I want to kiss him to shut him up. I do, and Boris leans into it with such boyish enthusiasm you could almost believe he loved you. 

  


A hand on my chest, fingers spread, a soft pressure, pressed me back down onto the bed. Another button was undone. I had yet to let go of the offending hand, yet Boris was able to move it without much trouble as if I hadn’t been holding it at all.

  


“Potter, pozvol'te mne pozhaluysta , you know me.”

  


I know not what he said, but the pleading in his voice won me over. I let go of his hand and surrendered myself to the seemingly practiced spontaneity of Boris’s touches. 

  


“English,” I respond voice already hoarse from thoughts alone of what was to come. Boris simply shook his head and nipped my jaw playfully. I turned my face to meet his lips, just a brush, hardly contact, but Boris grinned like an idiot. The moment I gave into the touches, Boris turned humorous again.

  


“ Angliyskiy ne yazyk udovol'stviya ”

  


“Fucker,” I snorted, trying to tilt my face away to save the soft skin of my jaw and neck, “English,  angliyskiy ” one of the few words I remembered from school.

  


“Fucker? Ha!  Ya skoro budu tem, kem ty menya nazovesh ', yesli ty prosto ne budesh' dvigat'sya”

  


Before I could respond, Boris clamped a hand down over my mouth and kissed the back of his own hand before forcibly turning my head and placing a bite on the side of my neck.

  


I bit the palm of his hand; he jerked it away, laughing and shouting. I pushed him off only to crawl back over to him and pin him down under the weight of my body. He pushed back, and when that didn't work, he yanked at my hair. It was my turn to shout, and in my shock, Boris managed to slide out from under me.

  


“Fuck you!” I shouted, attempting and failing to push him back down onto the mattress. Somehow, he managed to grab onto my shirt in the process, and we went toppling off the bed; landing in a crumpled heap on the floor.

  


Boris loomed above me once more, the change of scenery must have done something to him because his once playful mood had taken turned into sincerity. He kissed my brow, then both cheeks. 

  


“ Esli by mne prishlos' prazhit' etu zhizn' snova, ya by nashol tebya ran'she. ” he breathed in my ear. It comes out in a rush like he didn’t mean to say it. Like he didn’t think his words over much, “ Klyanus', ya ne mog by lyubit' tebya bol'she, chem lyublyu seichas, no znayu, shto budu tochna tak zhe lyubit' tebya zavtra ”

  


“English, please.” I try to brush the errant curls out of his face to no avail. 

He thought for a moment, “I missed you.”

  


“That’s a shit translation.”

  


III

Revelations

“And you? When will you begin that long journey into yourself?”

  


He was situating himself very carefully over me like I was some frightened animal that might leap up and bite him if he made the wrong move. Somehow, he managed to get both of my wrists and hands before he closed the tiny yet seemingly insurmountable gap between us. I could feel his pulse against my hands, stuttering and fast, or maybe it was my own. In my mind, we had already begun to blend.

  


He kissed me in earnest now, deep, slow, deliberate. The rhythm of him was familiar and like coming home. His lips were almost painfully soft; they had no reason to be. The urge to nip at them was astoundingly strong, yet I found myself so awed by the rose petal softness of them I couldn’t bring myself to take his lips between my teeth. Still, I thought about it; about drawing blood, tasting the coppery substance, my own lips coming away rouged in him. I wanted to pull that blush beyond the surface, paint with it, touch it, have it be mine. I wanted to consume him, but the urge to preserve him was just a strong. I ached just as strongly to keep him soft and unblemished; preserved.

  


I broke the kiss only to draw a languorous line across his bottom lip with the tip of my tongue. Boris, shocked at the feeling, loosened his grip on my hands. I took the opportunity. Grabbing his face just short of roughly, I sat us back, the position forcing Boris onto my lap. He didn’t seem to mind the change if the low and appreciative sounds he moaned against my lips were anything to go by. 

  


Hands cupping cheeks, Boris finding the nascent spark of his pleasure against my stomach, the burning heat of my blush that wouldn’t seem to quit. Little shivers racked my body.

  


“Can we-” My voice broke as he brushed up against me just right; his pleasure my mine for a moment, “can we get up off the floor.”

  


By some miracle, we ended up back in bed again. Boris fisted a hand in my hair, pulling me up for a more tumultuous kiss that reminded me vividly of our childhood. In the same motion, he grabbed a pillow and maneuvered it under my head. So, maybe less like our childhood. 

  


“Stop being so reverent.” I chastised between kisses.

  


“What?”

  


I decided to lead by example. I turned us over, Boris—breathing heavily, smiling wickedly—now below me. I fitted myself between his denim clothed legs and further fanned the spark of pleasure Boris had found earlier while rutting up against my stomach. He hissed at almost pain of it, the pace harsh. 

  


“So,” A strangled sound interrupted his speech as it clawed its way out of his throat, “you like me well enough?” 

  


“Yes,” and it’s barely more than an exhale. Wet open mouth explorations of his neck elicit the strangest and perfectest sounds. The salty taste of his skin reminds me simultaneously of the sea and of sweaty Vegas afternoons. New and yet the same, like listening to a stranger sing your favorite song. I couldn’t help but anticipate the little purple marks that would bloom and grow overnight into light blossoms of mauve. How well he would wear them in the morning light.

  


And it’s so different from every time with Kitsey; cold and performative Kitsey. Every night with her felt like running through a script; lines and blocking precise, allowing for very few deviations. The theatricality of it all bored me. The trademark of her family’s old life had yet to fade from her, and maybe it never would. Or perhaps it just the fact that she was with me. Perhaps with Tom, she was a live wire; grasping, clutching, reckless, and needy like Boris was for me now. A part of me doubted that. 

  


Boris was again struggling to loosen the ivory buttons of my shirt, I pinned his arms downs above him as he had done to me. The soft give of his skin over his bones thrills me; the realness of him thrills me.

  


“Let me.” He protested bucking up beneath me, but I sat back and began the task myself. He managed to wrap his legs around my waist, but It wasn’t enough to pull me back into reach. By some miracle, I didn’t struggle with the buttons.

  


We fell into each other again, finding warmth and blessed friction. In one moment he was unbearably sweet to me, laying saccharine kisses upon my brow, the next he was biting into the crook of my shoulder with such force I was sure he had broken the skin there. 

  


When I had managed to undress Boris fully—he had made it a difficult task, twisting away from me and attempting to bite at my fingers—I backed off him a moment just to look at him; the art of his body: somehow precariously thin despite his appetite, impossibly soft skin despite his dangerous lifestyle, movements impressively graceful despite the K. 

  


His chest rising and falling rapidly, I could feel the hummingbird heart beating within the cage of his naked chest. In kissing his wrists and arms, I was careful to avoid the various needle marks and straight-line scars.

  


I trailed fingers and kisses down his chest and slope of his stomach, I glanced up often, and I was rewarded not only with wet and mewling sounds but the visible trembling of his lip—a lip he caught between his teeth as I touched and kissed the aching parts of him. He tasted simply of port and perspiration. Heady, intoxicating, Boris. 

  


It was not so suffocating as I had remembered.

  


“Potter!” Surprised and reverent. He fisted a hand in my hair, seemingly without his knowledge. Involuntarily. I groaned at the dull pain, shocked at the strength of his hand. At the sound, Boris loosened his grip.

  


“Sorry, I-” He had to stop to clear his throat, his voice had come out strangled, “Did that hurt?” 

  


“You're asking me now?” I also had to pause and wait for the throbbing in the back of my throat to dissipate, “You didn’t have a problem with biting me,” to punctuate my statement I lightly caught the skin just below his hip bone between my teeth and tugged, “which did hurt.” 

  


He threw his head back at the feeling, his hair falling out of his face, excepting the few sweaty strands that clung to the skin of his forehead. I bit him again, and suddenly, his hand was back in my hair. I had him back between my lips within the same breath.

  


I idly wondered how many other people were rocking together and clinging to slick bodies that, in that moment, felt like an extension of themselves. At first, the thought that Boris and I were part of some never-ending rolling, pitching rhythm of lovemaking stretching back to the very beginning of time appeared to me to be the most beautiful thing. 

  


But it seemed impossible that so many people had before felt what I felt now. If others before Boris and I had experienced this feeling—so sweet and wild, sharp and forgiving, human and animal—how had they done anything else. How did they untangle their bodies when parting was such sorrow? 

  


I decided then that Boris and I were the very first humans to have ever felt so sweet a pain.

  


Boris’s chanting of my name increased in volume and fever. his pitch was rising too; the breathy high tone of his voice stirred something in me. 

  


Roughly, Boris pulled me off him, I was left gasping, jaw aching, hovering an inch or so above him. I was vaguely aware that I was drooling. 

  


“I was- I was about to- I did not want to finish just now,” His breath was coming in gasps.

  


I wanted to answer, to tell him that I wanted to watch him come undone, but before I could speak, he was slipping out of my reach and asking to repay the favor.

  


I was still gingerly rubbing at my jaw when Boris started tugging at the waistline of my pants. Stripped of pants and underthings, the cold air of the room shocked my oversensitive nerves. Boris, taking gentle hold of my chin with one hand and gingerly wrapping a warm hand around me, moved to kiss me. I succumbed to his touches with little protest. I was mumbling all sorts of obscenities and prayers into his yielding mouth.

  


“You taste like me,” he sounded surprised.

  


I couldn’t seem to stop the constant chanting of his name long enough to respond. The blessed warmth of his hand was soon replaced by the tortuous, perfect heat of his mouth. It felt like hot water on freezing skin, it felt like steam from a hot cup of tea burning your face, it felt like slipping under already warm covers. The coiling and tightening in my stomach, a close to weekly occurrence, took on a new technicolor brilliance with Boris. My nerves sang with every touch, every kiss, every lingering drag of the tongue. In short, and bluntly, it felt fucking good.

  


He kept his eyes locked on mine. From this angle, his eyes looked almost over large. When I reached down to cup a hand under his jaw, just to feel the strain of his muscles, he keened, and the heavenly vibrations caused my hips to jerk forward wholly without my permission. His throat spasmed, and his eyes pricked with tears, but he did not move to pull away.

  


As Boris had done, I was forced to stop him. The wet eyelashes and teary eyes were far too perfect of a picture for my mortal eyes.

  


“You are less bitter than you were,” he spoke more to himself than to me, but of course, I heard. He furrowed his eyebrows as if this fact deeply confused him or contradicted some treasured piece of information. 

  


“You mean you remembered what I… what I taste like?” it was a question in earnest, and for the first time that night, I saw Boris blush. He shrugged and brought a hand up awkwardly to scratch at the back of his neck. 

  


“Let us not talk, kiss me.”

  


I pressed my forehead against his but did not move to actually kiss him.

  


“You remember so much. I wish I did, I do.” I tilted my face slightly so that our noses touched somewhat, the light pressure, and the slight chill of the tip of his nose was the sort of little thing I knew I’d remember for a lifetime.

  


“You were always drunk.” And while what he says isn't a complaint, it isn't not complain either. 

  


“I know, I’m sorry.” I do kiss him then, and I’m almost sure that the wetness on my cheek isn’t from me. I kiss at the rouge tear.

  


“Why didn’t you follow me.”

  


“I think that I thought you would hate me.”

  


To prove him wrong, I take both of us within my free hand, and with the other, I guide Boris’s face into an all-consuming kiss. Though all my movements, I attempt to tell him that I could never hate him. 

  


Boris shouts for me, squeezing his eyes shut so tight he forces tears out of them, mouth still falling open in that perfect, familiar ‘O’. 

  


He kisses my neck and slumps against me. He whispers obscene things to me in a mix of breathy English and throaty Russian. But it is only when licks along the shell of my ear and mutters “My Theo” do I find my blinding release. 

  


Boris and I, the only two lovers in the world, collapse against one another.

  


The world grows silent for the briefest moment, and all there is is this moment; Boris and me and soul-shattering pleasure and nothing else.

  


  


**Author's Note:**

> if this was a fun read for you, maybe leave a word or two in the comments :)


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